


Sand and Stone

by magickmoons



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Ancient Egypt, Community: writerverse, Episode Related, Episode: s08e20 Moebius (2), Gen, Grief/Mourning, Missing Scene, Wordcount: 100-500
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-12
Updated: 2011-12-12
Packaged: 2017-10-27 06:37:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/292709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magickmoons/pseuds/magickmoons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Original Timeline Daniel reflects during the events of Moebius</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sand and Stone

**Author's Note:**

> written for Challenge #04 on writerverse at livejournal.
> 
> Challenge Details: 100-500 words. The prompt is "writing". Write a story about writing— any kind of writing. You can have your character be an author, you can write about people finding fanfic about themselves, you can have a lover struggling to write poetry. Be creative!

**2998 BC**

Daniel surveyed his work.  At each of three cardinal direction points debris from their failed revolt was arranged to shape the hieroglyphics he had carefully chosen to represent each of his executed teammates.  With his hands he had carved their initials into the shifting sands underneath.  JO.  T.  SC.  At the center point were furrows creating a representation of the SGC logo.  It was the best memorial he could fashion for his friends given the circumstances.  There could be no permanent record that they were here, no lasting monument to their sacrifice, without risking further damage to the timeline. 

He felt the warm wind picking up as he knelt in his place at the fourth point.  Already thin sheets of sand were blowing over the hieroglyphs, filling in the channels, erasing their existence grain by grain.  Knowing he needed to leave now in order to beat the sandstorm back to Katep’s tent, he reluctantly stood and turned away from the private makeshift memorial.  _Not enough_ , he thought.  _Never enough._

 

 

**2994 BC**

Daniel eyed the tablet in front him critically, measuring how much room was left on the stone versus how many carefully chosen words he had left to inscribe, then looked at the setting sun.  He wanted to finish this line before he lost the light. 

As he chiseled, little flecks of stone flew up, stinging his face before coming to rest on his hands and in the folds of his robes.  He was squinting in the lengthening shadows by the time he finished etching ‘land of the cold in the south.’  His fingers traced the depressions in the stone as he reflected on the costs of the second ‘successful’ rebellion.  How to explain Pyrrhic victory to these people?  They had indeed driven away their oppressor, yet lost the stargate and stolen Earth’s future in the process.

He carefully put his tools away, enfolding the stone in several layers of linen cloth.  He leaned back against the stone outcropping as he ate a strip of dried meat and drank a small portion of water, before preparing for sleep in his makeshift shelter, far from the village.  One or two more days and he would be finished.  This would, in all likelihood, be the sum of total of his life’s work.  He chuckled mirthlessly.  He could take all the time he needed; he had the rest of his life to complete this task.  Then he would take the tablet and bury it, to be hidden for 5,000 years and, he hoped, deciphered by his future self.  _No pressure, Daniel.  Just the fate of the world._

And the next time Katep or his cousins came to check on the crazy visitor, he would be gone, rejoining his team, his friends, swallowed up by the broad expanse of the desert that had erased their names, as it had their lives, years before. 


End file.
